topic Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice in Digital Home Phone

Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

organisedjim — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 07:13:56 GMT

We have a BT 8600 cordless phone which has built-in Call Guardian / trueCall feature. We were moved to Digital Voice and FTTP a couple of weeks ago with a new hub, and after that we noticed the call blocking isn't letting some calls through at all.

When we try calling our landline from a mobile, we get the Call Guardian message ("please say your name and press hash") but pressing hash doesn't do anything, the message just repeats. It seems that the keypress isn't getting through to the BT 8600. Calling from another landline works fine though. The cordless phone is plugged directly into the green port on the hub, and I've tried changing that cable.

I've read that mobile phones send keypresses digitally rather than as audio tones, and that the EE hub is meant to convert it to tones. If I call our landline number from my mobile and press a number key, I don't hear the tone.

I don't see any settings in the hub admin page for this - does anyone have any advice on this?

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

JimM11 — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 11:50:48 GMT

@organisedjim Hopefully you are aware that call blocking with call guardian no longer functions when you have a DV Digital Voice connection, you may just have to use all the features that DV has instead the system off key press is where it mostly falls down service wise, you will not be able to get as reliable operation as previous before DV....

Set up your Digital Home Phone service | Home Phone Help | EE

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

XRaySpeX — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 14:28:19 GMT

@JimM11 wrote:
call blocking with call guardian no longer functions when you have a DV Digital Voice connection

Where is that stated? Or is just another glitch in EE BB like many others that could well be fixable?

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

organisedjim — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 07:10:12 GMT

EE support have told me that the Call Guardian phone definitely should work - so if it's a known issue, even their support team aren't aware. Presumably there's many more people with Call Guardian phones, some of whom would have been moved to DV by now and I haven't found any other posts on this specific problem - so my intuition is that this issue is specific to our EE hub rather than more general?

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

JimM11 — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 09:15:40 GMT

@organisedjim You may just wish to have a look also on the BT Forum just search Call Guardian not to may post's to go look at but some are ranging back few years, and they will NOT be using your specific EE hub but will be Having DV through the BT one, yes it should work as you have posted and been told, it's just not as good when it was on the PSTN connection.

Document as much as you can the what/why's and raise it as a formal complaint, have it logged and someone may just possibly get back to you.

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

YorkshireMidge — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 12:10:50 GMT

@organisedjim I'm seeing the same issue as you but with different kit. I came across to EE from PlusNet just a few weeks back and hadn't actually tested Truecall from an unknown mobile until I saw your post.

I have a Home phone adapter, connected to a standalone Truecall unit, with a cordless phone system hung off the back.

If I call my landline from a mobile which is not on my Star List, and hit the breakthrough key (configured to be a 5 on my Truecall unit rather than the # a caller had to press on the BT Truecall phones) in response to the challenge, it isn't being picked up, so it just hangs up on me after a couple of attempts.

If I call from my normal mobile which is on my Star List and is therefore put straight through to my cordless system, hitting any key on my mobile can't be heard on the cordless handset.

So it looks like DV isn't passing ANY key presses through from mobiles. I imagine this issue won't just affect Truecall. Anyone with a traditional answering machine which they can access remotely with keystrokes and a PIN will be similarly affected if they call in from a mobile.

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

JimM11 — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 13:31:48 GMT

@YorkshireMidge Apart from mobile issues. it is also reported but was a while back now so it may have been fixed someone needs to try and test, the DVA when connected for landline, would also not respond to key press options ie press 1234 to get to wxyz, solution was to always use the connected phone to the Back off the EE Hub.

If something is not working unless someone reports it to EE CS then it is never fixable when not known. It is also very common on wifi calling, when asked to select options they just do not work, then drop back to mobile and dial out that way, eventually you get to know what works and does not....

The DVA does go back years now so can be hard to find post wise.

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

YorkshireMidge — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 13:39:14 GMT

Just a quick update. I've been onto EE CS and the lady I spoke to told me there was a discrepancy between Call Protect settings on the account and on the network. She has corrected it but tells me it can take up to 24hrs to come into effect.

I was quite sceptical about this being anything to do with Call Protect as the call is self-evidently getting through - but I thought I'd try it as soon as I got off the phone from them, and you can imagine my surprise when it worked at the first attempt. i.e. the same "unknown" test mobile that hasn't been able to break through TrueCall all morning was suddenly able to when I pressed the 5 key and I was at the next stage of providing my name for screening. However, my euphoria was short lived as it then failed the second time, and has continued to fail ever since (around a dozen attempts). So, I'm going to leave it 24 hours and re-test.

I guess an interesting test in the meantime would be a few people with DV simply making a call from their mobile to their landline and seeing if key presses on the mobile keypad translate to tones on their landline handset. If it does, then at least we know this is something a bit weird/unusual.

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

YorkshireMidge — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 14:33:01 GMT

@JimM11 I've just unplugged my DVA from the mains (which obviously takes the TrueCall and cordless system out of the equation too), so it can't be interfering in any way. I plugged a bog standard phone (a Converse 1300 I happened to have spare) direct into the back of the hub, phoned my landline from my test mobile, and keys pressed from it aren't heard on the Converse phone handset. So I think we can now rule out the DVA + @organisedjim said he was connected directly into the hub in his case anyway.

You remember a few weeks back I had to factory reset my hub to clear out all the port forwarding entries in order to be able to put my CCTV forwarding rule in first - and that factory reset also had the effect of clearing out an odd nslookup issue I put on here at the same time? Obviously that factory reset was successful on both counts but the thought has just crossed my mind that it might have mucked something else up if the key presses normally get transmitted through from a mobile OK for other EE users. @organisedjim you haven't had to factory reset your hub by any chance have you?

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

JimM11 — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 15:05:15 GMT

@YorkshireMidge If you can hold off, new round off FW updates was posted to day, and the 6+ is on the list again....

EE Hub firmware versions - The EE Community

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

YorkshireMidge — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 18:29:51 GMT

Thanks @JimM11 - we'll see if that makes any difference (my hub is still showing 4.23.3), but just to add that whatever EE CS did the other day definately HASN'T resolved the problem. The fact it worked the first time I tried it after the call seems to have just been a fluke - and I had the same fluke when I tested it again this evening. i.e. first test call got through, and all the subsequent ones failed.

What will be interesting is Openreach are switching my mother-in-law to full fibre on Wednesday as part of her migration from Plusnet to EE and she has the BT big button 2600 call blocking phone, so we'll see if that acquires the same issue when I plug the new EE hub in.

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

YorkshireMidge — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 09:19:07 GMT

Further update from my side - I got back in touch with EE CS this morning to let them know whatever they did the other day hadn't made any difference so it has been passed on to back office techies by the sounds so we'll see what happens next, and/or whether the next hub firmware update fixes it. I did point out that mainstream retailers such as Argos are still selling the BT phones with Truecall technology built in - the BT Decor 2600 (used by my mother-in-law) and BT 8600 (used by @organisedjim ) - so it seems inconceivable that they would not be compatible with DV supplied by EE/BT.

Is anyone else out there using these sorts of phones on DV and definately DOESN'T have this issue with unknown mobiles? There are two possibilities it seems to me:

1. This is a widespread issue but because those of us (like me) who have been using TrueCall technology for many years already have huge Star Lists built up of people we know AND this only affects unknown mobiles, not unknown landlines, we are not aware we have the issue.

2. This is just peculiar to a small number of people, due to some specific issue or fault.

To give you an example of what I mean with the first point, I have been on DV for some weeks now but it wasn't until this weekend that an unknown caller from a mobile hit this issue for real, and they happened to have my mobile too - so were able to ring me on that and tell me they had experienced the problem, and even then, it was only mentioned in passing during the conversation.

Meanwhile, my mother-in-law's PlusNet to EE migration tomorrow has gone pear shaped. I got an email from Openreach this morning asking me to re-confirm the appointment for tomorrow and when I clicked the green button in the email, it then told me that appointment had been cancelled (implying I had cancelled it myself). EE couldn't tell me why this had happened or when it will be re-appointed. Farce.

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

JimM11 — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 19:01:57 GMT

@YorkshireMidge Never had OR e-mails was always text to confirm or reschedule if needed, must be a new way to delay?

Back off the Queue now 7-21 days delayed may be a good thing if she still has a working system, have you considered keeping PN and moving the phone to a voip provider.

The 6+ range of FW updates appears to be frozen at present with no one posting up any change so may be delayed or not happening currently.

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

YorkshireMidge — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 22:12:13 GMT

@JimM11 I considered shifting the landlines out to an external VoIP provider and buying a Grandstream 801 box for both us and MiL, but when the offer was there to switch to EE, I went for what I *thought* would be a simple solution.

Anyway, I've been reading up about issues with DTMF from mobiles to VoIP services and it sounds like problems are fairly well known and documented over many years. For example, there have been cases where users of mobiles can't navigate through an IVR on a receiving service delivered over VoIP - which in essence is the same issue I see with Truecall.

If I understand what I've read correctly, if the mobile passes DTMF tones, the compression used in the mobile network can apparently mess the tones up at the receiving VoIP service. So there is a standard (currently RFC4733, formally RFC2833) which seems to be around passing tones as RTP packets instead - which I think is what @organisedjim was alluding to in his original post.

You might recall I had trouble with my CCTV because a upnp TV had ended up in the port forwarding rule list first - and the EE hub obviously has some horrible bugs in this area. So I had to turn off the TV connectivity, factory default the hub, and manually put my CCTV port forwarding rule in first. So, I'm starting to wonder if there are other issues with the internal firewall of the hub, such that it is maybe blocking the ports RTP uses (seems to be UDP ports 16384-3276). But I can't see any way I can diagnose this myself as there seems little access to the hub firewall.

@organisedjim as you posted the issue up, is there anything unusual about your particular setup?

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

organisedjim — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 05:53:08 GMT

@YorkshireMidge Nothing unusual about my setup as far as I can tell - I did a factory reset on the BT 8600 phones, the EE hub is brand new and none of the settings have been changed to our knowledge. There's no extension wiring or any other phones, just the BT 8600 plugged directly into the back of the EE hub.

I also did some reading on this and came to the same thought as you, that the "tones" from mobiles are sent as data packets (RFC4733 etc) and the conversion to actual DTMF tones is meant to happen in the ATA part of the EE hub.

I did have a support ticket open with EE but I see they've closed it without giving any further update as they said 'no fault found'. I'll call them again! For now I've disabled the Call Guardian on the handsets and am just using the EE blocker, haven't had any nuisance calls so far but I'd still like to get this working properly.

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

YorkshireMidge — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 19:32:25 GMT

@organisedjim EE's blocker ought to be fairly effective because it knows about common nuisance callers, but like you, I don't think anything is as good as TrueCall so I want to get to the bottom of this if possible.

One thing I would be interested in is whether you have any port forward rules on your hub. Even if you didn't put them in yourself, plug-and-play smart TVs can end up in there. Go into advanced settings, firewall, port forwarding. I'm just interested in whether the table is empty or not, that's all.

We already know for certain there are bugs in the EE hub firewall which stuff port forwarding, so I'm going to try an experiment over the next day or so, and factory reset my EE hub again and then test TrueCall thorougly before I put any of my config back in, and see if it makes any difference.

I have a plan B which is I'm hoping to get my hands on a BT Smart Hub 2 this weekend which I believe will work on the EE service, so I'm going to see if that exhibits the same issues.

I've not heard anymore from EE yet on my fault report and I'll post up if I do. I also put a formal written complaint in a few weeks back about the port forward related bugs and haven't had a reply on that either. I don't think EE's first line agents have the skills to deal with the more difficult and intractable faults, and I don't mind that so long as they have the wherewithal to escalate issues like this into their product line.

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

Jones01 — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:04:18 GMT

@YorkshireMidge ,

Have you contacted TrueCall about your unit not working properly with the EE DV service? They supply a firmware update for earlier TrueCall units and can make adjustments to its settings for use with VoIP.

The TrueCall email address is info@truecall.co.uk and their phone number is 0800 0336 339, but they don't always answer.

TrueCall standalone units can be problematic when used with Grandstream ATAs.

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

YorkshireMidge — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:55:48 GMT

@Jones01 No I haven't. I have replaced the TrueCall with a standard phone for testing purposes and I'm not getting the tones passed through at all when I ring from a mobile and hit the breakthrough key and that cannot be the fault of the TrueCall unit, and the OP has the same issue with the BT 8600.

I've had a dig about and it seems like the firmware update might be needed when using certain ATAs (including the Grandstream) so I'll certainly bear that in mind if I run out of ideas and end up ditching DV in favour of separate VoIP provider - but I'm not at that stage just yet. Thanks.

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

YorkshireMidge — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:34:27 GMT

@organisedjim @JimM11 @Jones01 @XRaySpeX

Well, some very interesting results to report from this evenings testing.

Test 1 - Factory reset my EE hub - then tested TrueCall before applying any of my config*. Fault remained as I expected it might.

Test 2 - Installed a BT Smart Hub 2 in place of the EE hub. It worked 😀

Test 3 - As the BT Smart Hub 2 had been in use elsewhere, I then factory reset it just to make certain the fact that it was working had nothing to do with any config already on it. It worked. Then applied my config* and retested, and again, it worked fine.

*By config, all I am talking about is a port forwarding rule for my CCTV DVR, and No-IP DNS service to get to the CCTV DVR from out on the net. Nothing else.

The firmware version on the Smart Hub 2 is v0.46.02.10311-BT and looks like it last updated itself Wed Dec 17 02:23:03 2025. I'll keep an eye on that in case it updates itself, and then retest as necessary. I plan to keep the BT hub in service for the time being.

So, for the change of hub type to have resolved this, it can only mean that there is yet another bug in the EE hub - but that rather suggests more people should be experiencing the issue than just me and @organisedjim given the BT phones incorporating TrueCall are still widely on sale.

Re: Call-screening landline phone not working on Digital Voice

JimM11 — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 19:02:15 GMT

@YorkshireMidge No FW update on the SH2, that is the latest currently, just so you are aware. BT Forum if you need any confirmation to that!

Smart Hub 2 firmware upgrade - BT Community

If you do not need anything EE Wise, do consider just leaving the BT Smart Hub 2 on the connection, it covers the landline, little low on the full wifi speed push but is a real reasonable hub, EE may get to the other sh1t one day but don't expect any miracles.

Give it a good few days operation to be sure.